This maze-like side quest might be something that the Morning Star or Manjusaka could brute force their way through. After all, it doesn’t replicate the person with the highest Body Index, nor does it replicate the one with the strongest Perception. Instead, it chooses someone like Lin Zhen, who is easier to replicate and excels in maze combat. If Xue Wan were here, he could probably just kill his way through one by one.
Yan Wei and Yan Mingguang could certainly do the same.
If this were treated as a simple test of brute strength, using the maze’s natural confusion to lure these “Lin Zhens” away one by one might be the fastest and most effective method. But Yan Wei didn’t want to waste time or take unnecessary risks—who knew how many of these “Lin Zhens” there were? What if killing one just spawned another?
In that case, he decided to take the opposite approach.
When these puppet Lin Zhens had first attacked, they targeted Yan Wei and Yan Mingguang. But when the real Lin Zhen intervened, the puppet Lin Zhens turned their attention to him. This suggested that the puppets didn’t have any special way of identifying their targets; they simply attacked whoever attacked them first.
With this in mind, Lin Zhen could easily blend in by pretending to be one of the puppets searching for Yan Wei. All he had to do was call out a few times, act like he was looking for Yan Wei, and lead the puppets away. It didn’t even require much acting since all the puppets looked identical. Even if Lin Zhen kept redirecting them, the puppets wouldn’t suspect anything because, in their eyes, each Lin Zhen speaking might not be the same person—even though it was always the same one.
The only downside was that Yan Wei and Yan Mingguang would have to separate from Lin Zhen.
But the maze didn’t restrict communication Items, so as long as Yan Wei could find the right path, he could still coordinate with Lin Zhen. By taking this counterintuitive approach, unless the Man in Black Robe personally appeared before the Lin Zhens or the maze had some special identification mechanism, Lin Zhen would actually be the safest one. All he had to do was wait for Yan Wei to solve the puzzle while he kept leading the puppets away from their location.
The rest was up to Yan Wei and Yan Mingguang.
Yan Mingguang crouched down, seemingly repeating the actions Yan Wei had taken earlier to mark the intersections.
Yan Wei held up the Moon Wheel, its pale light illuminating Yan Mingguang as he gazed down at him. From this angle, he could only see Yan Mingguang’s profile, barely making out his expression—not one of relief like his own, nor a slight relaxation after tension, but a calmness that seemed almost natural.
This man… had more memories than him and always seemed more composed.
Yan Wei didn’t particularly like this feeling. He didn’t like others knowing more than him, nor did he like being looked at with such calculated ease. But Yan Mingguang had always been like this, and while it made him uncomfortable, it didn’t evoke much resentment. He couldn’t even bring himself to question it.
Once Yan Mingguang finished marking and stood up, Yan Wei finally looked away and said, “We need to find the way. This four-layer maze doesn’t have as many exploitable elements as the larger outer maze. It’s too pure, just a tangle of winding paths. We can’t just brute force our way through.”
“The layout of the maze… what could a crow be carrying on its back?”
Having just been chased by the puppets, Yan Wei pondered for a moment when a soft thud interrupted his thoughts.
He turned to see Yan Mingguang bending down to pick up the map. “It’s fine. I just dropped it by accident,” Yan Mingguang said, brushing the dirt off the map.
Yan Wei’s gaze lingered on the map, his mind racing through the routes they’d just taken.
The Malevolent Automatons inside the castle and the more genuine Benevolent Automatons beyond them, the crows outside the castle and the crows within its layout, the repeated reality outside the inner Dream Realm, the maze within the castle within the maze…
All these overlapping elements, layer upon layer, false and true, inner and outer. This instance seemed to constantly dance between these layers of nesting and truth and illusion.
“Have you thought of something?” Yan Mingguang, who rarely prompted him in such moments, spoke up. “Does it have to do with the map?”
His tone was as calm as ever, but it was oddly soothing, not disrupting Yan Wei’s thoughts but rather clearing his mind.
Yan Wei reached out and took the now perfectly clean map from Yan Mingguang’s hands.
On the map, the black lines Lin Zhen had drawn outlined a crow encircled by the contour of a round coin. The crow appeared to be spreading its wings, much like the crows outside the castle. Yan Wei’s finger traced the crow’s outline, slowly completing the entire shape.
“The maze surrounds the castle, which contains another maze. The crows surrounding the castle are also crows, and the crow inside the castle carries on its back…”
Another crow.
Yan Wei’s finger stopped at the crow’s head.
Recalling the paths they’d just run through, he pointed to a line on the crow’s outline that matched their recent route. “There’s definitely a matching path. They really didn’t want us to brute force this! The maze’s layout is a scaled-down version of the castle’s. It’s a smaller crow on the back of a crow. We’re here now, and our target should be either the head or the heart. But we’ve already been near the heart, and there was nothing unusual there.”
So it had to be the head.
The layout matched perfectly. This was the map’s true purpose!
With the map in hand, they could take the shortest route to the head. Lin Zhen could blend in with the puppets, keeping them from encountering the real threats, and the maze would become no different from an ordinary path.
“Let’s head to the head,” Yan Wei whispered into the communication Item, speaking to Lin Zhen on the other end. “I’ll give you an update on our route later. You drew this map—do you still remember it?”
A sharp sound of an arrow being loosed came through the Item.
“Alright, Yan Mingguang and I are moving.”
Xu Miaomiao sat down in front of Yan Wei.
The Manjusaka player who had been fooled by “Yan Wei” finally regained his senses upon seeing Xu Miaomiao. Realizing what he’d done and fearing her wrath, he quickly fled the room, slamming the door behind him.
Xu Miaomiao, now focused on Yan Wei’s actions, didn’t bother with her teammate. One stood guard at the door while the other slowly walked over and sat down in front of the Benevolent Automaton Yan Wei.
She seemed to chuckle, then actually laughed, genuinely amused. She rested her chin in her hands, carefully studying the Benevolent Automaton Yan Wei, just as she had when she’d first “caught” him.
The Benevolent Automaton Yan Wei raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
Xu Miaomiao asked, “How did you untie the ropes? Could you teach me?”
“Are you trying to deduce my motives and behavior patterns?” the Benevolent Automaton Yan Wei replied without hesitation. “We think alike—summarize someone’s behavior, then work backward from their goals to predict their next move.”
She continued to smile, but her eyes darkened. “I suddenly feel like trying to kill you.”
“I’m not afraid of death. I’m a Benevolent Automaton.”
“Then I’ll just try it. It won’t matter since I’m also a Benevolent Automaton.”
“Then why don’t I kill you? We’re both Benevolent Automatons, after all.”
Despite their words, neither moved.
The Benevolent Automaton Yan Wei knew Xu Miaomiao wouldn’t actually act. For one, she didn’t believe his claims, and he was just spinning tales. For another, she was confident she could deduce his thoughts, and her pride made her want to extract the most value from him herself.
While the True Self Yan Wei might face many challenges requiring both action and deduction, this was purely a mental game.
“Have you and he reached a cooperation?” Xu Miaomiao suddenly asked.
The Benevolent Automaton Yan Wei: “We have. I’ve already said, I’m a Benevolent Automaton.”
“Do you think I’ll believe that?”
“Then why are you asking?”
“Just for fun.”
The Benevolent Automaton Yan Wei shrugged. He then asked, “So what’s Manjusaka planning now? Xue Wan has taken the Stargazing Platform, and Remaining Flower has interfered, causing you to lose the Man in Black Robe. After all this, it seems like you’ve come up empty-handed.”
“But we’ve caught you, haven’t we?” Xu Miaomiao smiled. “Do you think I’ll tell you our plans?”
“You won’t? Then what are you doing now?”
This time, Xu Miaomiao fell silent for a moment.
The Benevolent Automaton Yan Wei didn’t expect an answer. Xu Miaomiao thought he was trying to escape, but he was just buying time. He didn’t care about her thoughts or Manjusaka’s next steps. He only needed her to focus more attention on him.
He said, “Or you could tell me how you plan to deal with Xue Wan?”
Xu Miaomiao glanced at him.
“Blackbird has been lukewarm in the last two ranking matches,” she suddenly said. “But I’ve been to the higher floors—though not through official means. There aren’t many players in the super-high floors. The instances are large, but the number of participants is fewer than in instances like ours. I only spent a few days there, but I met most of them and overheard them talking a few times.”
The Benevolent Automaton Yan Wei was slightly surprised but indifferent. “They were probably talking about me.”
Xu Miaomiao finally couldn’t help but roll her eyes at him.
“I was surprised because, in the Tower World’s eyes, Blackbird was once a rising dark horse, but their rise was short-lived. After their leader disappeared, they became very low-key, with no standout performances in Arena Instances. But in the eyes of the super-high floor players, Blackbird… is terrifying.”
“They speak of Blackbird’s leader with great caution.”
The Benevolent Automaton Yan Wei blinked but said nothing.
“So my impression of Blackbird is different from others’.”
The next moment, they both spoke almost simultaneously.
The Benevolent Automaton Yan Wei: “Do you know how tacky it is to negotiate with someone after capturing them?”
Xu Miaomiao: “My next plan is to cooperate with Blackbird.”
Fourth floor.
Yan Wei stopped in his tracks, looking up at the “crow’s head” before him.
—It was a miniature version of the castle.
